


To Walk in Apollo's Domain

by Liquid_Lyrium



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Extended Metaphors, Fluff, Hand Kisses, Hand Worship, Holding Hands, Inspired By Tumblr, Inspired by Art, Inspired by Fanart, M/M, Other, References to Palmistry, Schmoop, Sort Of, Tenderness, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, hand kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-18 16:46:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21730627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium
Summary: The human hand has twenty seven bones.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 80





	To Walk in Apollo's Domain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lonicera_caprifolium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonicera_caprifolium/gifts).



> I would like to thank lonicera-caprifolium for giving me permission to write this little piece for [this gorgeous, gorgeous artwork.](https://lonicera-caprifolium.tumblr.com/post/189574049548/how-about-a-lovely-early-morning-kiss-the-human) My heart! *Clutches chest.*

The human hand has twenty seven bones.

Aziraphale presses a kiss to the impossibly fragile and vulnerable skin at Crowley’s inner wrist. The thinnest layers of cells sealing away the stuff inside. Some of it flesh and bone, some of it approximations, some of it cosmic and incomprehensible. There’s a flutter beneath his lips. The thrum of blood and the beat of a heart neither of them were made with. If they were human, it would have been innate, all those fixings and trappings. Aziraphale traces his thumb over the heel of Crowley’s palm next. The grooves and dips and lines that hadn’t been placed there by genetics or wear, but by careful study and deliberation. He drags his thumb along the heart line Crowley crafted. He feels the pulse beat there too, and Aziraphale smiles. He feels the matching echo against his breast, from where Crowley’s other hand rests, arm curved around his ribs. Beautifully optional breath tickles the nape of his neck, and the precious chest holding the heart that powers all these _options_ pressed against his spine. Each beat the softest whisper, a quiet truth Crowley’s been telling so long, neither of them know when it began. _I’m yours. I’m yours. Just ask. I’m yours. I’m yours. Be mine. I’m yours._ The angel smothers his smile into the demon’s wrist.

He’ll never tell Crowley the truth.

He’ll never tell that human pulses don’t reverberate on their palms, in their heart and life lines. Lines that Crowley has rewritten over the centuries to reflect their story. Aziraphale presses his lips to end of of the message there, perfect love. (Lines imperfect and perfectly suited to what they have and who they are. The path they carved and fought and begged and stole to arrive here over eternity.)

He’ll tell Crowley the truth, someday.

He’ll tell Crowley that he loves the hands he’s crafted, someday. Hands that once carded through the cosmos and now so often card through his hair like starlight. Aziraphale kisses the very tips of the fingers of Saturn and Jupiter. Kisses the knuckles of the Sol and Mercury fingers, pours his love into the Zodiac mapped to the twelve bones of his phalanges, and the rest of the planetary homes scattered about the palm. He kisses the echo of the heart Crowley opted into. Kisses the very center of that palm so that his lips are framed by it, heart and life lines pulsing on either side.

Crowley’s hand has twenty seven bones.

Aziraphale is fascinated by three.

Aziraphale traces his thumb along Apollo’s domain, no longer afraid like a mortal trespassing on Mount Olympus.This finger is ruled by the sun it created. (Aziraphale was made for Earth. He cannot picture the size of the stars, cannot hold all of the cosmos in his head. His imagination is only planet-scaled. Cannot imagine an object that size suspended from only one finger. It makes the inhuman mess of him beneath his flesh churn and eddy at such imperfection, such limitation. _It’s nothing, angel, don’t worry about it. Look at the sky. Just a disc of gold._ ) A nerve supposedly runs from this finger through to the heart. It’s a story he’s heard humans tell themselves for millennia but, unlike pulses beating like heartstrings through heart lines, Aziraphale does not know if this one is true. Does not want to know if it is true. He knows there is such a nerve in his body. He suspects there is one in Crowley’s too. It’s such a wonderfully silly, lovely little human belief that Aziraphale can’t help but love it. Love these hands, wait for a day a different disc of gold rules this finger. ( _Just ask. Just ask. I’m yours. Just ask._ )

Aziraphale curls the back of his hand loosely against Crowley’s palm, feels the throb of the imperfect replica, of humanity that Crowley has chosen for himself. The sentimental adornments that he’s picked for himself as telling as Aziraphale’s softness. The layer of flesh draped around his hips. The softness of his hands, unmarred by the sword he was given. The sword he was made for, the sword he never asked for, the sword he gave away.

All the beautifully perfect imperfections that weren’t issued with his body that he put there. Each little crease and stretch mark a riot against the Divine Plan. A rebellion against who he was supposed to be. And aren’t they also a lovely barometer to see who can accept him for who he truly is?

Sometimes Aziraphale envies humans, envies how they come into the world. Now that he’s free, he wouldn’t trade places with a single one of them. Not anymore. Not for the sake of being immortal and spending eternity with Crowley, but for how much all these silly, sentimental choices mean. How much _more_ they mean, these shells that house and hide their true nature. The vessels that somehow weave and blur the lines between mere conveyance and a home.

Aziraphale draws Crowley’s fingers down in a loose tangle with his. Kisses those knuckles once again. Following the order of the solar system. Sun. Mercury. Saturn. Jupiter. Back to the sun, always drawn towards the sun. One perfect thought weaves its way through his sleep-love haze. Flashes along the nerve line from finger to heart and makes him smile. Underneath that life line, love line pulse.

_It isn’t the life we were born with. It’s the life we chose._

_(I’m yours. I’m yours. Be mine. Just ask. I’m yours. Just ask. Just ask. I’m yours.)_

It only takes a thought, and Aziraphale reaches to press Crowley’s hand against his chest. So the demon can feel the answering beat behind and beneath, where Aziraphale has threaded a pulse through the softness of his palm. So he can answer every truth with one of his own. To echo both the heart within his chest and against his spine.

_I know. I know. My love. I know. I’m yours. I’m yours. I’ll ask._

_I know._


End file.
